Only the terrain boards, the village buildings, the inn across the road from the hacienda, the scrub brush, roads, and road-side trees are mine -- the troops, and the compound itself, with the hacienda, barn, and various sheds -- belong to my good friend, Nick Stern, who drove down from Northern California to my home in Los Angeles to celebrate Camerone Day 149.

My hope and plan is to have my own, slightly larger and -- hopefully! -- a bit sweeter looking version, ready in time for Camerone Day 150, a year from now. Luckily for me my Maiwand boards seem to do a good job filling in for central Mexico, especially with the added greenery, though I need to stock up on 25mm/28mm CACTUS and get some high quality PALM TREES.

On the miniatures front, I'm hoping that GRINGO 40 will come out with his Maximillian French Foreign Legion figures for me to buy and get them painted and based in time for the big day on April 30th, 2013.

I was seriously considering commissioning a small "Camerone" range of FFL, but when I learned Gringo 40 was going to do a major Maximillian Adventure range, I got in touch and asked if he planned to include Legionnaires, and he told me that he did indeed, so I dropped that plan. Gringo has a lot of irons in the fire, with his Alamo, Mexican-American War, and Pancho Villa lines, as well as the Maximillian range.

All his figures look good, so I'm just keeping my fingers crossed the Legionnaires will be ready in time! If he has them to sell during the lead-up to the 150th anniversary, my guess is they will sell very well.

PS Silver Whistle: sorry but you'll have to wait a little bit longer to see what happens next! Tomorrow is my youngest child's school fair, for which I've spent the past couple of months weekends preparing the games. Once it's done, I will return to post tons more pics -- and hopefully a good AAR as well -- of the game!